Curiosities of Science. 137 



harrows in raking the bottom of the water. Dr. Buckland used 

 to suggest that they were perhaps employed as anchors, by 

 means of which the monster might fasten itself to the bank of 

 a stream and enjoy a comfortable nap. The extreme length of 

 the Dinotherium was about eighteen feet. Professor Kemp, in 

 his restoration of the animal, has given it a trunk like that of 

 the elephant, but not so long, and the general form of the tapir. 

 Professor Owen. 



THE GLYPTODON. 



There are few creatures which we should less have expected 

 to find represented in fossil history by a race of gigantic brethren 

 than the armadillo. The creature is so small, not only in size 

 but in all its works and ways, that we with difficulty associate 

 it with the idea of magnitude. Yet Sir Woodbine Parish has 

 discovered evidences of enormous animals of this family having 

 once dwelt in South America. The huge loricated (plated over) 

 creature whose relics were first sent has received the name of 

 Glyptodon, from its sculptured teeth. Unlike the small arma- 

 dillos, it was unable to roll itself up into a ball ; though an 

 enormous carnivore which lived in those days must have made 

 it sometimes wish it had the power to do so. When attacked, 

 it must have crouched down, and endeavoured to make its huge 

 shell as good a defence as possible. Professor Owen. 



INMATES OF AN AUSTRALIAN CAVERN. 



From the fossil-bone caverns in Wellington Valley, in 1830, 

 were sent to Professor Owen several bones which belonged, as 

 it turned out, to gigantic kangaroos, immensely larger than 

 any existing species ; to a kind of wombat, to formidable das- 

 yures, and several other genera. It also appeared that the 

 bones, which were those of herbivores, had evidently belonged 

 to young animals, while those of the carnivores were full-sized ; 

 a fact which points to the relations between the two families 

 having been any thing but agreeable to the herbivores. 



THE POUCH-LION OF AUSTRALIA. 



The Thylacoleo (Pouch-Lion) was a gigantic marsupial car- 

 nivore, whose character and affinities Professor Owen has, with 

 exquisite scientific tact, made out from very small indications. 

 This monster, which had kangaroos with heads three feet long 

 to feed on, must have been one of the most extraordinary ani- 

 mals of the antique world. 



THE CONEY OF SCRIPTURE. 



Paleontologists have pointed out the curious fact that the 



